The Online Protector

His latest product is K9 - an Internet filtering anti-phishing software that can help protect children and families from realtime online fraud, thieves and identity theft.

Phishing is the practice of luring an unsuspecting person to a counterfeit website that looks legitimate and tricks the user into revealing logins, passwords, credit-card information and other private information, resulting in identity theft, robbery and fraud.

According to IT researchers, the average losses from phishing are now more than US$3,000 (Bt107,000) per incident and the total damage could be in excess of $1 billion per year. Banking and retail sites such as Amazon.com, eBay and PayPal are among the most popular for cybercriminals.

In addition, social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook are also becoming popular for "social phishing" because they are the perfect sites from which to steal personal details.

To suppress "phishing", the software assesses the Web page as soon as the user clicks on the link. If the page is not found in its database, a query is then sent to the Blue Coat labs, where the page is analysed in real time.

If the page in question is categorised as a phishing site, the software immediately blocks access. And this whole process takes a mere 250 to 750 milliseconds.

Tan says the new software helps parents stay one step ahead of harmful content and malicious scams that the Internet brings into the home.

Parents can configure the software to block content from specific categories such as pornography, spyware and adult-mature content, and can also stop access at certain times of the day, for example, after bedtime, Tan said.

For business enterprises, the 37yearold Singapore-based executive, who holds a marketing degree from Australia's Murdoch University, said better bandwidth management would also help cut IT costs.

"You can save as much as 30 to 300 per cent on the cost of bandwidth depending on the usage of appropriate applications," he said.

"On average, the bandwidth cost in Thailand is about 20 per cent higher than in other places, though the demand is growing 20 per cent annually."

Such a high growth in demand could be attributed to the rapidly increasing number of mobile and Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) users at data centres.

VoIP is common among organisations with branches across Thailand and in neighbouring countries, as it is a cheaper alternative for long-distance phone calls.

Tan, who is fluent in both Thai and Vietnamese apart from English and Mandarin, says Vietnam is another fast-growing market for Blue Coat due to its rapidly expanding IT infrastructure.

Yet, the former communist country is still six or seven years behind Thailand as far as IT infrastructure is concerned.

In Southeast Asia, Singapore came first in terms of sales for Blue Coat, followed by Thailand.

Citing the US financial crisis, whose fall¬out has already hit Asian countries, he said the region's economies would likely face a sharp slowdown next year.

As a result, many organisations should consider investing in software and equipment that could help them save costs during this crucial juncture.